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That 2 in 1 mod is ideal for certain scenarios and may be perfect for some gamers/collectors out there, but for me personally, I don’t like it.

The key negative for me would be that all of the stats (bookkeeping, audits, records, high scores, etc.) would be wiped out every time you change the game.
 
That 2 in 1 mod is ideal for certain scenarios and may be perfect for some gamers/collectors out there, but for me personally, I don’t like it.

The key negative for me would be that all of the stats (bookkeeping, audits, records, high scores, etc.) would be wiped out every time you change the game.

Would they? This got me thinking so I’m looking around for a way to double an nvram chip and then toggle that with a high line too, but I don’t see any nvram. Instead I’m actually thinking the audits are written to the hdd. Mame writes a dif file for it, at least. So you could switch all you wanted and that data would remain on the hdd.

So if you wanted to keep your audits you’d image your hdd to one of the CF cards on the switcher.

(and more importantly for you, if you want to keep that data intact on your own board, I think you should back up your hdd! if it ever dies your audit data would be wiped out when you replaced the drive with a fresh copy)
 
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Well my main KI board that I keep in my dedicated cabinet is still running with the original 1994 Midway factory hard drive and still has all of the audits and bookkeeping fully intact along with the best combos and high scores from Miami’s best players of that time period.

I rarely power up that board. Only on special occasions. Rather I use my back up board which has the flash drive when playing on a cab or a SuperGun.

Now I’ve never been a huge fan of KI2, and so I rarely power it up, but having it on its own separate board is an absolute must because of how much I love KI1.

And I’ve actually been considering selling my back-up KI2 board because I never use it and the prices are so crazy lately that it’s a big temptation to finally let it go.
 
Well my main KI board that I keep in my dedicated cabinet is still running with the original 1994 Midway factory hard drive and still has all of the audits and bookkeeping fully intact along with the best combos and high scores from Miami’s best players of that time period.

I rarely power up that board. Only on special occasions. Rather I use my back up board which has the flash drive when playing on a cab or a SuperGun.

Now I’ve never been a huge fan of KI2, and so I rarely power it up, but having it on its own separate board is an absolute must because of how much I love KI1.

And I’ve actually been considering selling my back-up KI2 board because I never use it and the prices are so crazy lately that it’s a big temptation to finally let it go.
I'm curious as to what caused the price jump in KI boards. I researched many sites and marketplaces and recent sales earlier this year hovered 700-900 compared to last year where KI boards went for $500. and Now I see them as much as $2000 and most of the boards are being sold without hard drive. Only culprit complaints I've seen so far is that the arcade1up version has input lag but I am unsure if it's because of the buttons and then in mame there is a slight frameskip during certain vs screen animations which I have seen since I play the game on mame but would that warrant such a jump? I know people use ebay as the standard but we all now that's a double-edge unless there is something I missed here?

Edit: Also I've seen a few people go gaga for the lack of the ultra 64 promo too so obviously that and the addition of live play would make the 1up port inferior as well in many others' eyes.
 
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I'm curious as to what caused the price jump in KI boards. I researched many sites and marketplaces and recent sales earlier this year hovered 700-900 compared to last year where KI boards went for $500. and Now I see them as much as $2000 and most of the boards are being sold without hard drive. Only culprit complaints I've seen so far is that the arcade1up version has input lag but I am unsure if it's because of the buttons and then in mame there is a slight frameskip during certain vs screen animations which I have seen since I play the game on mame but would that warrant such a jump? I know people use ebay as the standard but we all now that's a double-edge unless there is something I missed here?

Edit: Also I've seen a few people go gaga for the lack of the ultra 64 promo too so obviously that and the addition of live play would make the 1up port inferior as well in many others' eyes.
Maybe the 1up has something to do with it? The emulation was developed by Code Mystics and is the same basic platform they used for the XBOne ports from what I understand. They've been on record stating that their solution has no input lag and any any lag in those machines are due to other circumstances out of their control like the low-quality monitor and the actual CP components and wiring.

The entire retro market is out of control right now, though - and sought after arcade PCBs are part of that trend unfortunately. I have games I got for $60 in 2021 that are worth well over $300 or more just a year later. 🤷‍♂️ This market is bonkers.
 
I’m also not exactly sure why KI boards have risen in price so quickly in such a short period of time (relative to say other similar era arcade boards). Granted, part of it is the desire for original hardware and software that purists will almost always have. And part of it is the “imperfection of emulation” that will almost always exist. But there seems to be something else at play here, besides the usual stuff, and I’m not sure what it is either.
 
@Supergun well back up that hdd then! Better yet, copy the image onto your other board’s CF and then you can run the cool scores/audits all the time!
 
back the drive up twice,
i'v never had a fully working ki drive,
and drives for area51 and megatouch are usually on their last legs and have bearings like a coffee grinder too.
 
I do agree with it being out of control but my theory as to what caused it since there were limited KI listings on eBay, a random one popped up and then set their price that way. Obviously, anyone that owns anything would love to possess something that is profitable so the trend starts unofficially. Then came those listings that are damaged and non-working; list those a little lower and that creates the lower bar of that spectrum. So then anyone not aware of this will see it as a benchmark. And I see boards with the mirror exposed I am unsure if there's damage to the inner ROMs. Then you have those that reburn the ROMs and add stickers so it's hard to say if the original chips were used or not. The HDDs of course fail over time because they are old and worn so using flash is a must at this point for the majority of boards using the any drive rom if need be. So my thing is, yes original hardware always has a spot, if ROMs were reburned, then technically, that wouldn't make it original if new chips were replaced right? it just makes it refreshed so thus would it technically be a lower value? Also capacitors may have to be changed soon since the boards came out almost 30 years ago. I am sure there is something else I am missing
 
if you erase and reprogram the roms it should have no effect on value - your just refreshing the data for another 20+ years.
people who want original rom stickers are collectors who will take a big hit because in the near future the roms will fail and they will have to either:
1: sell as faulty
2: re-program the roms and take a hit on the price that they themselves elevated to begin with.

i have no sympathy for such people - they are usually the collectors of japanese shmups games from companies like CAVE.
one of them asked me to repair a board once,
they wanted the chips soldered in without sockets and the same make of chips used.
to make it worse they wanted any stickers lifted with a razor and put onto the new chips.

i told them to go piss somebody else off and not waste my time!

in my opinion,
what makes a game original is the pcb being original and the roms containing the original code - not hacked or patched versions.
you cant expect something 20-50years old to work without some parts being replaced at some point.
 
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@Supergun well back up that hdd then! Better yet, copy the image onto your other board’s CF and then you can run the cool scores/audits all the time!

Well the thing is, I don’t believe that it works exactly like that. (regarding the saved data) It’s not that simple. I don’t think the HDD is the actual location where the game audits and bookkeeping data is stored. Remember that not all boards that have a hard drive utilize it in the same way. Some of these HD games only use the HDD as a “gigantic rom file” and any accumulated data is actually still kept on IC’s that are on the actual board itself.

In addition, KI boards still require the aftermarket “any IDE boot rom” in order to function with a compact flash, SD, or solid state drive. (anything but the original Seagate drive) So the saved data will be lost or overwritten when you swap out the boot rom and/or when you try to run the board with another copied drive.
 
in my opinion,
what makes a game original is the pcb being original and the roms containing the original code - not hacked or patched versions.
you cant expect something 20-50years old to work without some parts being replaced at some point.

I agree with this.
Many of the factory original diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc. can and will eventually fail, and in some cases take the board out with them through consequential damage; similar to old leaking batteries.

When doing repairs, we always try our best to keep everything as original as possible, but within reason of course.
 
if you erase and reprogram the roms it should have no effect on value - your just refreshing the data for another 20+ years.
people who want original rom stickers are collectors who will take a big hit because in the near future the roms will fail and they will have to either:
1: sell as faulty
2: re-program the roms and take a hit on the price that they themselves elevated to begin with.

i have no sympathy for such people - they are usually the collectors of japanese shmups games from companies like CAVE.
one of them asked me to repair a board once,
they wanted the chips soldered in without sockets and the same make of chips used.
to make it worse they wanted any stickers lifted with a razor and put onto the new chips.

i told them to go piss somebody else off and not waste my time!

in my opinion,
what makes a game original is the pcb being original and the roms containing the original code - not hacked or patched versions.
you cant expect something 20-50years old to work without some parts being replaced at some point.
You have your opinions and others have theirs.

But the only thing I’ll say is, razor blade scraping? You should steam the old sticker off!
 
Well the thing is, I don’t believe that it works exactly like that. (regarding the saved data) It’s not that simple. I don’t think the HDD is the actual location where the game audits and bookkeeping data is stored.
Normally in with you, lots of games use other solutions for storing data. But the KI pcb has no battery (so no battery backed ram), no fram, and no other non-volatile memory... besides the hdd.

And anyway I just tested it out on my own pcb. It's the HDD!

Back that drive up, it sounds really cool. (and on an optimistic note, isn't it nice that it's on the HDD? otherwise you wouldn't be able to back it up without de-soldering and dumping something, which I'm guessing you haven't, so that awesome history is now easily preservable.)
 
OK, glad to hear and good to know!
Now that I know that KI keeps it all on the drive, I definitely want to and need to preserve this “historical” drive.
 
you may want to use Linux to do it,
i noticed a long time ago that if you connect a drive to windows that it recognises the filesystem from, it creates a few files including a trashcan on the drive without asking!!!
this specially goes for VIPER CF cards!
 
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